If almost the entire world's media is to be believed, today will see the release of news of the newest addition to the Apple family with the expected unveiling of the new iPad Mini - as some are expecting it to be called - which will do exactly what it says on the label, offering a smaller, lighter, narrower device to help Apple tie up the tablet market even more. Not so long ago, dreams of an iPad Mini were some distance away, as Apples late former CEO Steve Jobs infamously said that smaller screens would be dead on arrival and implying that the company would never waste their efforts on a smaller unit:
"The current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA, dead on arrival. We don't think you can make a great tablet with a 7-inch screen."
But now it seems new CEO Tim Cook has decided to ignore those statements - thanks chiefly to the current state of the market, no doubt - and release a new, smaller unit some time in the busy run-up to Christmas. Since the announcement of today's invite-only press conference, and Apple's tease of a "little something more" the internet has gone typically mad with rumours regarding the new Apple baby with most suggested features, including even the new name up for debate. Will it be called the iPad Mini, or the iPad Air - as suggested by John Gruber, who claims that name is far more appropriate for the new shape and weight? This press conference will reveal all, late, but while we wait, we can still postulate on the biggest rumours...
1. The Screen Size
According to most rumour-mongers the iPad Mini screen will be 7.85-inches, and that it will feature non-Retina Display resolution of 1024x768. Most of the leaked images of the unit seem to corroberate those claims as well...